May 27, 2016

[I]n China, where racial stereotypes in popular culture are rampant, the commercial did not seem to provoke a great deal of reaction.

Xu Chunyan, an agent for Qiaobi [laundry detergent] based in the southeastern city of Suzhou, brushed aside the criticism, saying the ad was meant to be provocative. “We did this for some sensational effect,” she said. “If we just show laundry like all the other advertisements, ours will not stand out.”...

“Much of China’s simmering intolerance is color-based,” [wrote Raymond Zhou, a columnist for the English newspaper China Daily]. “It is not an exaggeration to say many of my countrymen have a subconscious adulation of races paler than us. The flip side: We tend to be biased against those darker skinned. It’s outright racism, but on closer examination it’s not totally race based. Many of us even look down on fellow Chinese who have darker skin, especially women.”

Asian people are all openly racist. You should hear my Father-in-laws comments about Japanese. Or Filipinos which work in Hong Kong and China similar to Mexicans in the US. Japanese people have particular views on everyone not Japanese.

It is a simple fact that the US is the least racist place on the planet. The only bastion of racism left in the US is the progressive/socialist movement.

There is no country less racist than the US, as far as I have ever been able to tell.

And the NY Times snarky explanation that it isn't just racism, but also sexism that fuels Chinese bigotry, is also worth noting for its subtle inclusion as a bogotry twofer. While the NY Times might have thought that the quote meant that Chinese women, especially, dislike dark skinned people in a racist manner, which is true, the author was also explaining the very true racist problem that Chinese men dislike dark skinned Chinese women. Twofer!

"Many of us even look down on fellow Chinese who have darker skin, especially women.”

Some one asked the other day about Asian women carrying umbrellas in hot sunshine. This is it.

Also, the genetic basis for white skin is probably the fact that vitamin D is synthesized in the skin with sunlight. Dark skin was an evolutionary advantage in Africa (sunburn, skin cancer) but once humans began to move out of Africa to the colder northern Europe, they began to wear clothing and they encountered seasons and shorter periods of daylight. In equatorial Africa there are no seasons. White skin screened out less sunlight and allowed vitamin D synthesis in less sunny conditions.

In China, the same evolutionary forces caused northern peoples to have lighter skin. In both Asia and Europe, the further north, the lighter the skin. China, however, never had the OCA2 mutation for blue eyes. That occurred 9500 years ago in what is now Lithuania but no one has figured out what the evolutionary advantage is. It should have disappeared if there was no advantage,

"Many of us even look down on fellow Chinese who have darker skin, especially women.”

Nothing peculiar to the Chinese here. Male preference for relatively lighter-skinned females is pretty much universal, even among dark-skinned people. It's unlikely that "class marker" or "culture" explains this particular manifestation of color preference.

My daughter taught English in Nanjing, China. She had only been at the school for a few weeks, when a video production crew showed up, and started filming her in the classroom. She resisted, and said "Shouldn't you be filming the other teacher? She has been here for several years."

"China, however, never had the OCA2 mutation for blue eyes. That occurred 9500 years ago in what is now Lithuania but no one has figured out what the evolutionary advantage is. It should have disappeared if there was no advantage."

" Male preference for relatively lighter-skinned females is pretty much universal, even among dark-skinned people."

I had a medical student two years ago who is a rather dark skinned Indian girl who is an engineer and now a medical student. She is gorgeous ! Just gorgeous. Among her other attributes, she is so mobile that she can stand on one foot and put her other leg along her ear.

She will go far. She affects a kind of dumb "Valley Girl" persona but is smart as a whip. One of my best students.

She told me her parents used an Indian dating web site to meet. Her mother chose her father from his photo. Both are physicians.

I recently discovered that my daughter can switch the dumb blonde thing on, and off. She never uses it on me. She has me wrapped around her finger, but I have seen her use it on other males. My wife does not have a dumb blonde switch.

The Italian commercial mocked white men and thus passed unnoticed. Is the fact that I'm not deeply offended a sign of my maturity or yet another example of white smugness?......I see the need for a Tide with Bleach commercial that highlights that product's ability to get the faded yellow out of undergarments. Someone like Margaret Cho gets stuffed into the machine and comes out looking like Kate Upton.

Anglelyne said...Male preference for relatively lighter-skinned females is pretty much universal, even among dark-skinned people. It's unlikely that "class marker" or "culture" explains this particular manifestation of color preference.

There's very high correlation (>.9!) between skin tone and IQ. If human intelligence is mostly the result of sexual selection (Here or here), then preferring light skin or blue eyes is probably also the result of sexual selection.

I think this girl uses it to hide her intelligence in social settings. I understand.

It was half way through the semester before I realized how smart she is. We would be looking stuff up on my laptop and she knew just how to modify stuff in the OS. I used a laptop connected to the university network to answer questions that required a bit more depth.

" the contention that higher intelligence evolves in colder climates."

"The 10,000 year explosion" has a chapter on the rapid evolution of IQ in Ashkenazi Jews in the Middle Ages when they were restricted in intermarrying and to professions that required math skills. The same evolutionary forces left them with lethal mutations in phospholipids like Tay-Sachs Disease.

It might be climate or some other factor related. There are also arguments that Neanderthals had larger brains. Maybe hunting skills.

There is always someone talking about how porpoises have brains the size of humans but porpoises have no prefrontal area, which is where intelligence probably resides.

I am presently trying to get through Lewin's Genes XI. Medical literature is going all genetic.

China, however, never had the OCA2 mutation for blue eyes. That occurred 9500 years ago in what is now Lithuania but no one has figured out what the evolutionary advantage is.

The science on blue eyes (when, where, who) is by no means settled. About all that we can say for sure in that regard is that blue eyes developed in Indo-European peoples sometime before they went forth on their epoch-making Volkwanderungen from their putative homeland in the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC).

Concerning the advantage of blue eyes: they are hot-sexy, which is a very big advantage indeed.

I have deep green eyes which I am given to understand mutated into existence on the site of the Guinness brewery in Dublin.

Racism is only a "problem" when, and where, more than one race is present in significant proportions. Thus, for example, when Swedes naively elected to allow large numbers of Somalis to immigrate into Sweden, they were unknowingly creating "the problem of racism" in their formerly homogeneous society, which they will now have to wrestle with for generations to come. They thought they were better than everybody else but now they will learn that they aren't.

I've read somewhere on the web that blue-eyed people tend to be better at recognizing shapes, browned-eyed people better with colors. That would make blue eyes a useful adaptation in areas that get a lot of snow: you have to find your way home from a winter hunting trip by recognizing the shapes of hills and trees and lakes, not their colors, because the whole environment is basically black, grey, and (mostly) white for months of the year.

Allegedly a hugely disproportionate number of the greatest painters have been hazel-eyed: obviously they need to be very good at shapes and colors. Not that hazel eyes guarantee multi-dimensional vision: I have them, but am also slightly color-blind, though I am really good at geometry. I have a little trouble with blues and greens. One uncle is completely colorblind - can't tell a red light from a green light except by position. I don't know what color his eyes are, and he'd obviously have to ask someone else to tell him.

Interestingly, it was a woman whereas most colorblindness is in males.

Only unilaterally dichromatic subjects can tell us how colors seen by a dichromatic eye appear to a normal eye. In the color-blind eye, our unilaterally dichromatic subject sees wavelengths below and above her neutral ("grey") point (which occurs at 502 mmicro) as, respectively, a blue equivalent to about 470 mmicro and a yellow equivalent to about 570 mmicro in her normal eye.

"They stole the premise from an Italian commercial and reworked it for a Chinese audience."

The NYT article I linked to talks about that:

"Amid the controversy over racism, another accusation was tossed into the mix: plagiarism. As the website Shanghaiist pointed out, the advertisement’s concept is nearly identical to that of an ad that was broadcast in Italy nearly a decade ago — except for one significant difference. In that video, a skinny, pale white man is placed in a spin cycle, only to emerge as a black man flexing his muscles with a hip-hop soundtrack while a tagline proclaimed, “Coloured is better.”"

Are all genetic changes adaptive? It's my understanding (which may be flawed) that they aren't necessarily adaptive, i.e. that sometimes shit just changes and for reasons that remain unknown they are perpetuated. Maybe because they're not maladaptive?

It most certainly is...we've been using the same ideas in animals successfully for thousands of years. You can begin your studies with Gregor Mendel.

Now as to it's morality.....that depends on the tactics used to control the breeding population.......the American Left chooses to use abortion and birth control, but was willing to use sterilization when allowed.

Re eugenics - it depends what you mean by that. The subject is complex and at the edge of research, but is easily misunderstood as simply a rhetorical formula.

If you want to follow new developments as they come I recommend Razib Khans Gene Expression blog. Its one of those areas of science where there is a very rapid stream of new research coming in.

As for direct work on the genetics of human cognition, there is a great deal going on, and as it happens, a great deal is known. Genes have been identified that do have an effect on intelligence however defined. As this is a complex phenomenon, its clear that biological population differences will be similarly complex and involve large numbers of genes, as well as other biological factors not yet identified (epigenetics, etc.).

"sometimes shit just changes and for reasons that remain unknown they are perpetuated. Maybe because they're not maladaptive?"

The 10,000 year explosion makes a good point that mutations that are not beneficial fade away as genetic material is diluted. Inbreeding, as practiced by Ashkanezi Jews in the Middle Ages and by Amish, can cause things to persist even if they are harmful.

Most, if not all, neutral mutations fade with a few generations. We have enormous amounts of inactive gene material in our chromosomes that does nothing and is of interest only in calculating the age of mutations.

On the subject of racism -- sure the Chinese are racist. But they're not racist in the sense of hating other races. See, e.g. this interesting map which aligns perfectly with my experiences and my prejudices so I think it is terribly compelling. Unlike, say, the Koreans or the Indians, Chinese are not much bothered by the prospect of living nearby someone from a different country (partly this may be because they have less experience of foreigners than the Koreans or the Indians, but let's ignore that for now). I don't think the Han Chinese have any particular hatred for other races -- they just think they're better than other races.

That said, I think the Chinese do (justifiably) resent the Western powers for the unequal treaties. That's political, though, not really racial.

Racism is only a "problem" when, and where, more than one race is present in significant proportions. Thus, for example, when Swedes naively elected to allow large numbers of Somalis to immigrate into Sweden, they were unknowingly creating "the problem of racism" in their formerly homogeneous society, which they will now have to wrestle with for generations to come. They thought they were better than everybody else but now they will learn that they aren't.

Yeah, it's really easy for homogenous areas to decry racism elsewhere. I found it endlessly amusing seeing Democrats from Vermont discuss how racist the South was.